Greet manuscripts

 The Greet manuscripts are a set of 21 tunes found, when working in his loft, by Peter Hill, who was then living at Littleworth, Greet, near Winchcombe. They were entitled “a few favourite airs adapted for the German (ie transverse) flute”. Many are dance tunes, though four seem to have been somebody’s “party pieces” for the flute: the two Scotch Airs, Myrtle Sprig and Soldier Laddie. They may be a similar selection of material as described in George Eliot’s Middlemarch: “so Fred was gratified with nearly an hour’s practice of Ar Hyd y Nos, Ye Banks and Braes, and other favourite airs from his instructor on the flute; a wheezy performance, into which he threw much ambition and an irrepressible hopefulness.”

Favourite Scotch Airs 1 & 2 were sung by Miss Free in the Battle of Bothwell Brigg, a musical romance in 2 acts by Henry Bishop, with lyrics by Charles Farley after Sir Walter Scott’s Old Mortality. It was produced at Covent Garden in 1820.

 Notes by Charles Menteith and Paul Burgess